Clean Water for Rural Honduras

In recent years, Honduras has faced what experts are calling an ecological catastrophe brought about by an outbreak of southern pine beetle, Dendroctonus frontalis. The sudden explosion of southern pine beetles in 2015 in Honduras is being blamed on a warming climate by some scientists. The Honduran government declared the situation a national emergency, given the beetle’s dramatic destruction of primary forest and the associated risk of wildfire. Critical forest habitats for Honduras’ notable biodiversity are disappearing at alarming rates. Since its onset in 2015, the pine beetle plague has destroyed about 509,000 hectares (1.2 million acres) of pine forest, equivalent to one quarter of Honduras' primary forest cover.

The Honduran national government launched a national response to the outbreak, creating an Interagency Commission with support from the international community. Honduran military units were deployed to help combat the plague, cutting down infected trees and removing subsequent biomass. While some of EcoLogic's partner communities were reached by national forces, their work was short-term and communities and local governments were mostly left on their own to continue controlling the plague and manage its devastating impacts.

Our local partners have worked tirelessly to combat the outbreak, bring it to a halt, and restore affected areas. The infestation is now mostly under control. However, given this situation assisted natural regeneration (ANR) actions have been prioritized by the local project team to respond to the scale of loss of pine forest due to the particularly severe outbreak of the pine beetle.

They have prioritized the Uchapa-Pimienta watershed in the Department of Yoro. The work that has been done already in 316 hectares over the last several months includes:

Community monitoring: The project technician supported by the Environmental Unit of the Municipality of Olanchito and the National Forest Development Institute (ICF) train communities and participate in visits to several sites in the forest that is regenerating and condict visual evaluations of the regeneration. Long-term community involvement and support is critical in preventing the recurrence of disturbance events that will set back succession to the before-treatment state.

Fire prevention: The construction and maintenance of firebreaks is carried out by brigades, reducing the likelihood that a fire can burn standing forests and regenerating areas. Protecting against fire and other forms of disturbance is the most important ANR activity.

Weed control: Clearing weeds around regenerating seedlings.This helps accelerate the growth of seedlings by reducing competition from the weedy species for water, nutrients, and light.

Fire control: When forest fires cannot be prevented, the Environmental Unit of the Municipality of Olanchito and local partners take action to control and fight fires.

Demarcation and signage: of areas where natural regenerating is taking place to prevent further disturbances.

Prevention and enforcement against illegal logging: Forest guards and military police: conduct monitoring patrols to detect illegal logging and take enforcement actions.

We are working to expand this work to cover the entire degrade area and protect this important source of water, livelihoods, habitat, and biodiversity! Thank you so much for your interest and support.